Messages - Erick648

I'd put Seaside last. Some of the cards (Native Village, Tactician) seem to be 18th-century, or 17th-century at the latest. I'd also put Prosperity after Renaissance, since colonialism came after the renaissance in real life. Both "Pirate Ship" and "Colony" should objectively be post-renaissance.

Then you have cards like Oracle, which seems to come from the same time period as Empires despite being in Hinterlands (and, honestly, always seemed out of place for the set). I would put Hinterlands more in the medieval era, though (just because it has Asian cards, that doesn't mean that it's from a time when Europeans directly interacted with Asia rather than trading indirectly via the Silk Road).

I'd also put Adventures next to Nocturne since the both have a "legendary" feel (don't Bridge Trolls and Giants belong alongside Pookas and Pixies?). I might even put Dark Ages and Nocturne in the same time period, with Dark Ages in continental Europe and Nocturne in the British Isles.

If you Prince a Poor House on Turn 5, you can't exchange Changeling for Prince because Prince is no longer in play (it's set aside). The only way you can get a Prince from Changeling is to choose not to set it aside (so it does nothing but stays in play and gets cleaned up like normal). Fortunately, you can Prince both Poor Houses on Turn 6, so the only loss is the ability to buy a $4 card on Turn 6.

So, I just had a (full random*) Kingdom with the following: Save, Courtyard, Haven, Native Village, and a $2 fan card that lets you save Action cards for later. There were also 5 non-hybrid Victory cards (as well as Triumph and Basilica).

*-With all sets and some fan cards, but 12 Kingdom cards (and 2 Events and up to 2 Landmarks) and a special rule for Potion-cost cards (if there are fewer than 3 Potion-cost cards, roll them over to the next Kingdom and replace them).

It seems that the funny part is that starting on Turn 7, Lord Rattington played Merchant-Merchant-Chapel every turn for the remaining 105 turns (having trashed everything else), buying nothing, while Chase continued to build with all the time in the world (and Gardens to reward his large deck).

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that you don't necessarily want all of the Villas. If you don't need additional actions or buys, Villa is basically just a Copper (that can be drawn dead, costs more, etc.), and gaining a bunch of Coppers to your hand is probably not the best move.

So while this combo is certainly useful, you should take care not to do it unthinkingly just because you can; make sure that every Villa you buy is making your deck stronger rather than weaker (or denying your opponent, moving towards a three-pile, or serving some other purpose that makes it worthwhile). Even without this combo, I've often seen inexperienced players overbuy Villas just because it's convenient even when those Villas did them more harm than good.

Even though your point is totally true, I feel inclined to point out that in this case villas don't cost more than coppers.

I was referring to their cost once they're in your deck, for things like Remodel, Bishop, etc. (especially if Quarry is your cost-reducer). That is, even if they're only Coppers on-play, they could still have the same trash-for-benefit uses as, say, Rats (as long as you play your trash-for-benefit card before your cost-reducers).

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that you don't necessarily want all of the Villas. If you don't need additional actions or buys, Villa is basically just a Copper (that can be drawn dead, costs more, etc.), and gaining a bunch of Coppers to your hand is probably not the best move.

So while this combo is certainly useful, you should take care not to do it unthinkingly just because you can; make sure that every Villa you buy is making your deck stronger rather than weaker (or denying your opponent, moving towards a three-pile, or serving some other purpose that makes it worthwhile). Even without this combo, I've often seen inexperienced players overbuy Villas just because it's convenient even when those Villas did them more harm than good.

Masquerade & Throne Room: I was applying the 2e versions before 2e made them official.

Tribute: Made it discard the bottom card of the player to your left and the player to your right (in 2p, your opponent is both to your left and your right and so discards the bottom two cards). This wasn't really for balance purposes so much as to make it feel like less of a "single-target attack" (it's not, but tell that to someone who keeps getting good cards discarded; it was either make this change or have the card vetoed entirely).

Scrying Pool: Removed the attack (but kept the self-spying). It speeds things up, and the card's plenty powerful without the attack.

Pearl Diver: Added the option of discarding the revealed card so you don't get stuck repeatedly revealing the same Province.

Smugglers: Let it copy any opponent, not just the player to your right. This was because of a game where two experienced players both went for a strategy where winning the split of a certain 5-cost card was crucial, and the third, less-experienced player, messed around with cards that weren't that helpful. Needless to say, the mirror player on the left won the split by a large margin due to Smuggling from the other mirror player, leading to the realization that the next time this situation happened, we'd know that whoever sat to the left of the newbie would be at a disadvantage, and no one would want to sit there. Letting it copy everyone means that no one's stuck with an inferior Smuggling target.

Black Market: Replaced the Black Market deck with 5 Events; each Black Market gives you a Buy that can only be spent on one of those Events (and all of those Events are available for every Black Market play). This was designed primarily to ease setup/cleanup (so I didn't have to keep fishing single cards out of my binders), but also serves to remove a lot of the weirdness associated with Black Market (i.e., random selections with potential unfairness where one player gets access to a vital card and the others don't; it also eliminates playing Treasures and buying stuff in the Action phase, which wasn't really a problem IMO, but it does simplify things to avoid it).

Walled Village: Changed the below-line text to "At the start of Clean-up, you may spend an Action to put this onto your deck." Since it's a card I paid for specifically, I wanted it to actually be relevant.

Boons in general: I replaced the random deck with a semi-randomly generated "Boon map" that you maneuver around, removing the unpredictability and potential unfairness. I also tweaked Sacred Grove (Boons that provide money are no longer excluded, since we use markers to track it anyway) and Druid (can now grant any Boon without moving around the map; we don't even use the map if Druid is the only Fate card) to fit the new system.

I guess this means we won't get another expansion with Coin tokens, which I'd hoped was a possibility after they brought back Victory tokens in Empires. There'd be no way to word the cards that would be intelligible to both people who had First Edition Guilds and didn't know about Second Edition and people who had Second Edition Guilds and didn't know about First Edition (they could include something in the rulebook explaining that Coin tokens are now Coffers, but it would still be awkward).

Here are some things I do to let engines get bigger:- Always use Platinum/Colonies- Always use Dominate (ideally with Platinum/Colonies, since Platinum makes players more likely to reach Dominate, and Colony makes them less likely to buy Provinces directly)- Include 12 of each Victory card in a 2-player game and 18 of each non-Kingdom Victory card in a 3-4 player game (you'll likely own extra basic cards due to them being included in both the base game and Intrigue)- Play to 4 (or more!) empty piles instead of 3

When talking about an avatar, there are 2 things that matter to me more than how viable a card is:

1) How much fun I've had with the card2) How much I like the artwork

The artwork is my favorite in the game, and an On-Buy Remodel is a fun concept to me. Although I rarely buy Farmland, the games where I built decks around them when it was new were fun. I probably got my ass kicked, but I had fun, which is a primary goal of a game after all

Of course, sometimes criteria #1 and #2 also align with a stronger card.

Proposed requirements for Card A to be categorically better than Card B:1. Everything Card B does that is usually good is also done by Card A.2. Everything Card A does that is usually bad is also done by Card B.3. Card A does at least one usually good thing that Card B doesn't OR Card B does at least one usually bad thing that Card A doesn't.

Note that this would require determining which abilities are "usually good," which are "usually bad," and which are "situationally good or bad," which would also depend on the purpose of the card in question (e.g., mandatory trashing is more likely to be "usually good" on a trasher and "situationally good or bad" on a card that provides large non-trashing benefits). For example, is Nomad Camp's topdecking "usually good" (making it categorically better than Woodcutter) or is it "situationally good or bad"?

Of course, optional abilities are always "usually good," since if they're bad you just don't use them (edge case that's basically irrelevant in practice: choosing not to use it lets your opponent know you didn't want to use it). In fact, optionality can be a "usually good" ability in its own right: for example, 2nd Edition Throne Room is categorically better than 1st Edition Throne Room because it has the optional ability to do nothing instead of playing a card (though it's arguably not strictly better due to edge cases where you want to Throne an action but you don't want your opponent to know you wanted to Throne it and would rather your opponent assume you were Throning it against your will).

At the point where you have already achieved victory, nothing is "wrong" or "right" from a strategic perspective...short of throwing the game.

For a time when it would actually improve your chances of winning, what if your opponent was going for a Copper-gainer+Tower deck, so that he had no chance to compete on Province VP and it was down to a race to see if you could empty the Provinces before he could empty the Coppers and claim the Tower VP (especially if you don't have a strong enough deck to handle greening and there aren't cards to allow a fast three-pile)?

Really, trying to race against any strategy that heavily backloads its VP would probably qualify in at least some circumstances.

Dame GainsTypes: Action - Attack - KnightCost: $5While this is in play, you may put it on top.Reveal the top card of your deck; or gain a Duchy, putting it on top of your next turn: +1 Coin per differently named Treasure Map from your hand that is not a Treasure card from your hand.Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of their deck, trashes one of them costing from $3 to $6, and discards the rest. If a Knight is trashed by this, trash this.

Funny that it came up with a slang term for an actual card (Dame Natalie). And this one is a gainer, too.

I recently had a game with Faithful Hound, City Quarter, Storeroom, and Secret Passage (and Dominate, so there was plenty of time to build). Draw your deck, topdeck a City Quarter for next turn with Secret Passage, discard your Faithful Hounds with Storeroom, and start your next turn with at least one City Quarter that's guaranteed to draw several cards (and all of your other City Quarters being supercharged). Who knew that dogs were so good for urban development?

If you really want to parse it, "At the end of your turn" could imply that it's still part of your turn (and "At the start of your turn" abilities provide precedent for that), while "After your turn" is clearly after your turn is over. It may not be obvious, but it's there if you're looking closely enough.

I really like the Action - Night dual type. There doesn't seem to be much of a trade-off here—mandatory edge case: action-phase deck inspection, especially Scrying Pool that you're not happy deferring—but perhaps something like this:

The general kind of trade-off would be between some benefit that's not useful after the (last*) Buy phase if you play it in your Action phase, versus non-terminality if played in the Night phase and/or perhaps some special benefit. (* thanks, Villa).

My last two games with Obelisk, it actually made the cards more balanced rather than less. We were at my brother's house so we were playing with Base (1st ed)-Prosperity-Adventures, but had all of the Events and Landmarks (which I'd brought from home). The first time Obelisk showed up, it selected Chancellor. Then it came up again a couple games later, and selected Adventurer.